I have my bike pretty hooked up for carrying groceries and such with two panniers and a rack. Ways a lot though and it's a pain to drag up the stairs. I would totally get a trike because as far as eccentric bikes goes it's not one of those sit down ones that only fat guys with beards ride. Hope this adds to your discussion.

Fixies are flat out stupid, That said, 90% of the "fixies" I see around Newport are actually single speeds, which I have no problem with, since my friends and I have been building them since the 80's. We'd buy bikes with nice frames from the police auction, and most would be stripped of components, so we would just turn 'em into single speeds/front brake only because that's what we could afford.

I actually considered buying a fixie for when I ride with the bike with the dog on leash, since I'm constantly riding the brakes.. otherwise it may turn into a National Lampoon's dog gets dragged incident. I decided I'd rather wear the brakes and wheels and then buy a fixie.

Somehow I prefer trust-funded shiatheads who find ways to reduce pollution to exurb shiatheads whose SUVs have never never been used for sport or utility.

/some shiatheads are worse than others//agree that the former shiatheads ought to follow the damn rules of the road

San Francisco strikes me as a singularly inappropriate place for the use of fixies. Yet for a while there, it was a fad, and there were these shops building them for big bucks. That phenomenon itself is worthy of contempt. People buying 5 mpg. urban assault vehicles for absolutely no reason that makes any sense is a separate peeve. Still, you run into these people with Nazi-like attitudes with regard to their use of bicycles. fark them. If I need to be 50 miles away in an hour, I'm taking my motorcycle. When I have to carry heavy objects, I'm driving my truck. Besides which, these days, my knees don't work especially well, and riding a bicycle everywhere seems to irritate them.

Fixies are impractical and exist for no reason other than a misguided attempt at fashion. The cargo bikes look equally ridiculous, but are actually practical. I don't think I could make fun of someone for riding one, but I will do my best.

My dad gave me this old Miyata and I converted it to a fixie about 4 years ago. I used to ride it 2 or 3 times a week, but I haven't been on it in a while. I have 6 other bikes that vary in style, so sometimes certain ones go unused for a while. But even when I'm not riding them, they're all well cared for and all are stored indoors.

This fixie has a lot of sentimental value not only because the frame was a gift from my dad, but because I purchased those Mavic handlebars the very next day after Greg Lemond won the time trial on the penultimate day in the 1989 Tour de France. He had the same handlebars on his time trial bike, so I bought mine to commemorate the moment.

Those cargo trailers look cool. Christmas is just a couple of months away - I may put this on my "possible" list.

Also, if you know a bit about bikes, you can probably see that I have very short legs and a very long torso.

I commute on my fixed gear bike, 12 miles each way. If you live in flatland, gears are an unnecessary complication.

Hey, if that's all you need then more power to you. If you paid extra for the luxury of severely limited functionality, you're an idiot. If not, go you.

Fixed gears (all single speeds for that matter) are much cheaper to build and maintain. Chains and cassettes on multi geared bikes wear out much faster than chains and cogs on fixies, a huge or of magnitude faster. Of course that is all negated if you choose to be a moron and ride without any breaks and just skid stop all the time. Breaks pads are a hell of alot cheaper than tires.

My fixie has a front break. Its about four years old and probably has over three thousand miles on it with orginal chain and tires. In that time I have spent hundreds of dollars on chains and cassettes for my geared road and commuter bikes.

max_pooper:Fixed gears (all single speeds for that matter) are much cheaper to build.

Hence my statement If you paid extra for the luxury of severely limited functionality, you're an idiot. Fixies definitely have their place. For example, I've heard rumors of at least 3 people who put thousands of miles of perfectly flat riding on their bikes. I don't think anyone is going to point and laugh at those guys if they're ever spotted in the wild.